Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/181

 *more, unhappy Theseus: and Phlegyas, from the depth of his agony, keeps warning all, and proclaiming with a voice of terror through the shades: 'Learn hereby to be righteous, and not to scorn the gods.' This sold his country for gold, and saddled her with a tyrant; for gain he     5 made and unmade laws: this assailed his daughter's bed, and essayed a forbidden union: all dared some monstrous crime, and enjoyed their daring. No; had I even a hundred tongues, and a hundred mouths, and lungs of iron, not then could I embrace all the types of crime, or rehearse     10 the whole muster-roll of vengeance."

So spoke Apollo's aged priestess; and then resuming: "But come," she cries, "speed on your way, and fulfil the duty you have essayed: quicken we our pace. I see the walls which the Cyclopian forge raised in air, and the     15 arched gates confronting us, where sacred rule bids us set down our offering." As she spoke, they step side by side through the dusky ways, despatch the interval of distance, and draw near the gate. Æneas masters the approach, sprinkles his body with pure spring water, and      20 fixes the branch on the portal's front.

And now these things done at length, and the offering to the goddess accomplished, they have reached the regions of bliss, green pleasaunces of happy groves, and the abodes of the blest. Here ether clothes the plains with      25 an ampler plenitude and a dazzling lustre; and the eye beholds a sun and stars of its own. There are some, plying their limbs on the grassy wrestling-ground, conflicting in sport, and grappling each other on the yellow sand: some are beating their feet in the dance, and chanting     30 songs. There, too, is the Thracian priest[o] in his flowing robe, singing the seven notes in unison with the dancer's measure, and striking them now with his fingers, now with the quill of ivory. Here are the old race of Teucer, a goodly family, heroes of lofty soul, born in       35 earth's better days, Ilus and Assaracus, and Dardanus, founder of Troy. From afar he gazes wonderingly on their warrior arms and their ghostly chariots. Their spears